


Lead to Gold and Other Miracles

by Katsala



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alchemy, Dysphoria, Female Harry Potter, Gen, Nice(r) Petunia Evans Dursley, Trans Harry Potter, Transitioning, Written for a Class
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27841564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katsala/pseuds/Katsala
Summary: On Harry Potter’s eighteenth birthday, she finally admits to herself who she really is. Then things get weird. Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.
Kudos: 34





	Lead to Gold and Other Miracles

**Author's Note:**

> Edited as of 1/4/21 for typos.

_Part Zero: The Ordinary World_

Harry Potter was having a lousy eighteenth birthday. It had started with Aunt Petunia waking him up at the crack of dawn, scissors in hand. His wild black hair, which he had inherited from his father, had just been beginning to grow past his chin, and now it was completely shorn; his ears felt cold and exposed. Then, of course, Draco Malfoy and his toadies had cornered him after class. His arm was bruised from where he had been slammed into the locker. And now there was cake and ice cream at home; he was not having a party, as he had no friends to invite. Aunt Petunia had baked a chocolate cake with chocolate icing, which was his cousin Dudley’s favorite. Harry had wanted vanilla, but it wasn’t worth a fight. He had no wish in mind as he blew out the candles. Aunt Petunia sliced the cake up with quick efficiency, giving the first piece to Dudley. Uncle Vernon refused his slice without looking up from his paperwork.

Harry ate as quickly as he could and excused himself, locking the door to his small bedroom after him. He pulled an old, ratty shoebox out from under his bed and sat cross-legged on the floor as he looked over his treasures.

Harry had always felt like he hadn’t belonged. Much of that feeling came from being an orphan. His parents had died in a car crash when he was a baby; he had a small scar from it on his forehead. He looked at a picture of his father, James, with his jet-black hair and thick glasses, lanky build and broad shoulders, and felt his chest tighten unpleasantly; many people had told him he looked just like his father, and he knew that it should make him happy to share that with him, but it didn’t. His mother, Lily, was a different story. He didn’t have her red hair, and though he often tried to replicate it in the mirror he couldn’t copy her crooked, dimpled smile. Her bright green eyes, though, had been passed down. Eyes were windows to the soul.

He drew his favorite treasure out of the box. It was a small circular gold locket on a fine chain that had once belonged to Lily. The outside had angel wings engraved onto its smooth surface; popping it open he could read the inscription on the inside, which said, “I open at the close.”

Harry put the chain around his neck. He pressed the locket to his lips, feeling rather sentimental, and admitted in a voice as quiet as a breath, “I think I’m a girl, mum.”

There was a loud ‘pop’ and a puff of red smoke, and suddenly Harry wasn’t alone in her room.

_Part One: Nigredo_

Harry scrambled to her feet. The stranger was enormous, almost twelve feet tall. He had a scraggly mane and beard of thick black hair. His eyes were dark, but full of humor. He wore a furry coat with dozens of pockets, and around the belt on his waist was a huge ring of keys.

“Ah! Hello there, Harry! If you still go by Harry, that is. My name is Hagrid, Rubeus Hagrid.” He held out one large hand to shake.

Harry stared at him. “You can’t be in our house. My uncle will call the police.”  
“Don’t worry about him, silly girl,” Hagrid told her, sending a warm feeling surging through her chest. “You’re more important. I’m here to offer to take you to Hogwarts. If you go, they’ll fix you right up, no trouble.”  
  
Harry swallowed hard. “They’ll make me a boy? They’ll make me normal?”

Hagrid gave a great, booming laugh. “Of course not! They’ll help you be a girl. That’s what you want, ain’t it?”

Harry considered it. “Yeah. It’s what I’ve always wanted. But… I can’t pay you. I don’t have any money.” Uncle Vernon certainly wouldn’t pay for it, and the only thing of value Harry owned was her locket. Her hand tightened around it protectively.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s magic,” Hagrid explained. He held out his hand again. “Are you ready?”

Harry smiled. Really smiled, for what felt like the first time in a long time. She took Hagrid’s hand.

And suddenly they weren’t in her bedroom anymore. A forest stretched out impossibly far before Harry’s eyes. The trees were thick, the shadows deep. For a moment she could have sworn she saw a car parked amongst the branches, but when she blinked it was gone. She looked up at Hagrid in awe. “Where are we?”

“This is the forest. It’s the only way to get to Hogwarts Castle- that’s where we’ll help you transition.” He pointed towards four paths that cut through the forest. “You have to choose one. Snake, lion, eagle, or badger. You’ll know which of ‘em is right for you.”  
Harry let go of Hagrid’s hand and inspected each path, careful not to go down any until she’d made her decision. The snake path was cool and smelled like rain, with muddy footprints up and down the length of it. The packed dirt on the eagle path only led down a few meters, before coming to a ladder and continuing in the treetops. The badger path was covered in soft grass and smelled, for reasons Harry couldn’t even begin to guess, like mashed potatoes and gravy. The lion path was the warmest. If she listened closely, she could hear laughter echoing through the leaves. It was the straightest of the paths, but also the most narrow. There was something about it that pulled at her.

“I choose the lion,” she told Hagrid confidently. He nodded, seeming pleased, and motioned for her to start making her way down it.

As she put one foot in front of the other, the clearing behind her disappeared. There was only the narrow, warm path. One foot went in front of the other. Thoughts came to her mind, images of great battles being fought. A man with a sword facing down a dragon. A soldier shielding a civilian from the enemy with their own body. A red-haired woman with green eyes and dimples giving birth to a tiny, wrinkly child, her expression one of pain and joy.  
  
Hagrid reached out and laid a steadying hand on her shoulder; Harry looked up, startled, and realized she was out of the forest. The trees and the path were behind her, and her feet ached as if she had walked for miles.

Before her was a great stone castle, its towers reaching high up into the sky. A man stood in front of the gate. He held a wooden wand in one hand and a glass bottle full of a lilac solution in the other. He was dressed in flowy black robes that, combined with his beak-like nose, made him look like a big black bird.

“This is Snape,” Hagrid explained to her. “He’ll get you into the castle, but first you’ll have to drink the potion. I promise for something called the Draught of Living Death, it really ain’t so scary.”

Harry looked back and forth between him and Snape, eyes wide. “Seriously?”

“I assure you, Ms. Potter, it is perfectly safe,” Snape said in a deadpan voice. “I am a Potions Master. If one of my subjects died, it would reflect badly upon me; therefore I make these potions with the utmost care.”

“That is not reassuring,” Harry lied, her voice tight. She grabbed the bottle out of his hand. “The whole thing?”

“The whole thing.”

Harry gulped the potion down. For a moment she felt fine, but a heaviness quickly overcame her limbs. She fell to the ground, too exhausted to make a sound as she fell into the mud. Her eyes flickered shut, unable to stand the effort to stay open. And that was where Harry Potter died.

_Part Two: Albedo_

She could only remember flashes of what she dreamed. A bird burst into flames. A woman looked at her with kind eyes identical to her own. A unicorn drank from a creek. A chocolate cake smashed against the floor. A moon rose above the horizon. A hand held hers.

“Is she still unconscious?” a bossy-voiced woman asked. 

“Oh, leave her alone, Mercury, she’s been through a lot,” replied a man with a scoff.

“I’m just saying that if this was the most important day of my life, I wouldn’t be sleeping through it.”

She smiled. “You sound like my Aunt Petunia.”

The man burst out laughing. She finally opened her eyes, and then shut them again quickly. Her body was wrong- not being-a-boy wrong, but unnaturally melted, like an unfortunate wax doll. Her features had blurred until there was nothing left but skin. She thought she could feel a bit of her leg dripping off the table.

“Don’t worry, it won’t last long. We’ll get you fixed up in no time,” the man assured her, patting her shoulder. He had unkempt red hair, more fiery than her mother’s, and a freckled complexion. “I’m Sulfur, by the way. This is Mercury.” Mercury, a woman with rather prominent front teeth and wild, curly brown hair, waved. “Are you ready?”

She nodded. Mercury reached over and grasped Sulfur’s hand. Silvery energy poured off their fingers as they moved their clasped hands over her body. Slowly she reformed, becoming how she had always wanted to look. Her shoulders slimmed, her hips widened. Breasts developed. Even her eyebrows took new form. All the while, Sulfur chatted to her about soccer. He liked some obscure team called the Chudley Cannons, who she had never heard of before.

“I’ll have to take you to a game sometime,” he said casually.

She felt a lump grow in her new throat. “I- I’d like that.”

Mercury finished pulling their hands over her feet. “There you are, good as gold!” she said proudly. She dropped Sulfur’s hand and helped her sit up. “Come on, you can look for yourself.” She pointed towards a golden mirror set up in front of the table they had lain her on. She couldn’t hold back a gasp.

All her life she had been told she looked like her father, but with her mother’s eyes. And now, she just looked like… herself. She was a girl on the outside now. Tears welled up in the eyes she shared with her mother, but did not fall. She wiped them away with delicate fingers- still her own fingers, the pinky a little crooked from where Dudley had accidentally slammed it in a car door, but unmistakably belonging to a woman.

_Part Three: Rubedo_

Sulfur and Mercury sent her off with their phone numbers written in sharpie on her wrist and instructions to climb the staircase to the highest tower. She ascended, feeling lighter than she ever had despite the new weight on her chest. Her cheeks hurt from smiling. 

She opened a thick wooden door and stepped into the tower. It was open-air with wooden railings; telescopes were set up to look out at the sky. She was the only inhabitant except for a fat, happily buzzing bumblebee. After the day she’d had, she wasn’t surprised when it started talking. 

“Hello, Ms. Potter. My name is Albus.”

“Hello, sir,” she said politely.

“Indeed. You are almost ready to begin your journey home. There is one thing that still needs tending to before you go, however. What is your name, young lady?”

She pursed her lips. “I don’t know. Not Harry anymore, though.”

Albus nodded as well as a bumblebee could. A large book materialized on the floor between them. “Feel free to research what you would like to be called. Take as much time as you need, but know you can always change your mind.”

She knelt down and rifled through the pages. She figured the best place to start was in the H section. She’d only been searching for ten minutes before she found it. Her breathing quickened as she ran her finger over the name. Lily, Petunia, and now… 

“Holly,” she told Albus. “My name is Holly.”

Albus laughed. “A wonderful choice, my dear. A wonderful choice. I think you are ready to leave us. Your path forward is not done, and it will not be easy, but please remember, help will always be given from Hogwarts to those who ask for it.”

Holly touched Mercury and Sulfur’s phone numbers and nodded. “Thank you, sir. Thank you for everything.” She looked around. “How do I get home?”

Albus buzzed happily. “You will need to take a leap of faith.”

Holly sighed, fighting another smile. “Of course I do.” She made her way over to the edge of the tower. “Thanks again, sir. I hope I’ll see you again.” And then she threw herself over the railing and into open air.

She turned in midair as she fell, long black hair streaming around her face, and as she looked up she saw the image of a skull with a snake coming out of its mouth appear over the tower. Just before she hit the ground, in the one second she felt fear, a pair of huge hands caught her. Hagrid cradled her in his arms and gently helped her get her feet under her. Holly laughed. He took a hold of her locket and said, of all things, “Abracadabra!”

_The Last Part: Return With the Elixir_

And then she was back in her room. Hagrid was gone. For a single moment she worried that it might have been a dream, but looking down at her body, she knew it had been real.

“Harry, dear,” a voice came, “are you alright? I heard a noise-”

Holly turned around, her heart sinking, to see Aunt Petunia in her doorway, a penny in her hand that had been used to undo the lock. And finally the tears came.

She flung herself at her aunt, wrapping her arms around her, tucking her head under her chin, and cried. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But this is who I’ve always been. Please don’t be mad, please. I’m sorry.”

For a while, Aunt Petunia didn’t move. But she slowly, surely, wrapped her own arms around her niece and hugged her back. “Oh, sweetie. You have nothing to be sorry for.” And they stayed like that, aunt and niece, for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Holly’s journey- Nigredo, Albedo, and Rubedo- is modeled after an alchemical quest. The Ordinary World and Return With the Elixir are references to the Hero’s Journey/The Monomyth. There was also some inspiration taken from “The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz.”
> 
> Holly’s pronouns are she/her, but aren’t used by the narrative until she starts using them for herself. 
> 
> I own everything. Rowling ain’t shit and all your favs are trans. :)


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